GECs see huge chunk of festive season brand spends

Though there are speculations about the third wave, the overall public opinion has been much better than last year. Ad expenditure seems to be touching the pre-COVID-19 era, with Indian players bringing us cheer during the Olympics, Paralympics, along with back-to-back IPL 2021 Phase 2 and the ICC T20 World Cup Cricket coinciding with the festive season. Since the festive season has seen a positive light, marketeers seem to be enthusiastic, hoping that dark clouds are finally clearing.

Festive period is family time in our country. The post-lockdown times have gained an even bigger prominence given the even higher need to rejuvenate oneself in these times of recovering from the pandemic. GECs play a pivotal role towards both – bringing the family together and also giving a fresh spin to our celebrated festivities. News has surged ahead of all genres, even as Movies and Kids genres are also seeing great traction. With content production work at a standstill due to the lockdown, there is dearth of fresh content on GECs, which had seen a drop in viewership in the initial days of the lockdown. However, re-telecast of old classics have resulted in a viewership surge that was unexpected.

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According to the Tam AdEx India’s analysis on Festive Season based on secondages on TV, the ad volumes for GEC Genre rose by 9% during August-December, 2020 over August -December 2019 and by 1% over 2018. The average Ad volumes per day for GEC Genre grew by 35% during August-December 2020 over January-July 2020 and by 8% in August-December 2019 over January-July 2019.

Speaking about how GECs can use content as a strong pull during this festive and cricket season, Srinivas Rao, National Director, Buying, MediaCom, said, “GEC protagonists are seen as one of the biggest influencers for media owners. Using them, all types of messaging can be easily communicated to the audiences in a tone and language they understand. GECs are in the best position to put across any message on a large scale.”

According to Simran Hoon, CEO, The Q, “The festive season is one that is most awaited by the viewer as much as the advertiser. Most channels program their tentpole properties and innovations during this period. This festive season is very anticipated by the industry as lockdowns have eased and a push strategy with good content, chasing high advertising dollars will surely lift the sentiment over the last few quarters.”

Revival was a huge concern for all the brands as they experienced a muted festive season last year due to the increasing cases of COVID-19, but this year the sentiments are very different for marketers, advertisers as well as the consumers. Along with this, GECs have also ushered in regaining and rejoicing normalcy by bringing fresh content in this festive season. Commenting on the expectations of GECs’ revival, Nitin Kamat CMO, TAM Media Research, said, “GECs have seen a positive growth post-lockdown and based on the trend we foresee, the same will continue even during the upcoming festive period. This has been led with not just new programs (due to commencement of shoots), but also with new concepts driving show’s story-lines. Stories that sequenced only family interpersonal relationships have taken bolder steps to blossom into stories focusing on Individual centric thoughts/ actions, leading to a new avatar of audiences showing loyalty to the GEC genre. Obviously, Advertisers are flocking in an attempt to catch this growing audience within the Genre.  With the vaccination drive (at least 1 dose) across the country crossing 50%, everything seems to be returning to normal for Advertisers too and hence brands are maximizing these opportunities to make the most of the festive special episodes and series planned by channels.”

Speaking on the kind of ad revenues that GECs can expect in the second half of 2021, including the festive period, Amarpreet Singh Saini, SVP, Bhojpuri Cluster, ZEEL, noted, “There is a renewed energy and enthusiasm both amongst the consumers and the advertisers post pandemic. The need to regain and rejoice normalcy is on an upswing. We are having an optimistic outlook towards spending across categories. ZEE Ganga has received a strong positive response in the market, given it’ll be the only platform who will cater original content in the category a healthy inflow of interest has been registered right at the onset. We are looking forward to further boosting of the sentiment in the coming festive period.”

GECs provide not merely saliency but also deepening of the value proposition of brands through seamless integrations and associations. Thus, there is a significant consideration towards GEC along with other saliency boosting options in the category.

“For the past 2 months, demand has really been on a high in comparison to any of the other years. Apart from this, most of the advertisers who we are seeing in the IPL phase 2, would have already earmarked this money in the first half, which is getting utilised now. Hence, all the money that is going to be spent on GEC now would anyways have been spent given that markets are opening up currently,” affirmed Mediacom’s Rao.

The Q’s Hoon added here, “Yes, there certainly is enough advertiser buoyancy and GEC's have enough and more content to pander to every viewer’s preferences. Cricket is part of a certain advertiser set and there is a whole vast advertiser base that is waiting to capitalise on a variety of content offered by GECs.”

The festive season is a big sale time for every advertiser not just in the FMCG category which is perennial, but across many more from Consumer Durables, Auto, Mobile, Lifestyle products, etc., and most actually come alive during the pre-Diwali months. Commenting on this, Zeel’s Saini said, “GECs help form deeper relationships and value associations with the audience. Novelty in festive celebrations while preserving their core is what excites the audience today and also provides brands with new connotations while delivering the core value promise. ZEE Ganga is launching with a bouquet of four fiction shows spread across genres viz. socio-political, socio-cultural, romance and thrill which is providing the brands with an array of choices to connect with a wider basis in the relevant manner. The added celebratory note with non-fiction like ‘Memsaab No.1’, which will be coming with its 10^th Season and events like Jai Chatthi Maiya, brands are provided with further hyper-localised partnership.”

Rao opined, “Pent up demand in a lot of categories, markets opening up more or less completely, mobility going up drastically, disposable income available to spend for consumers, increased demand for certain categories who are currently active (which is unlike the normal scenario) could mean advertisers putting on advertising money during the festive season.”

“Traditionally we have seen spending going up by around 10-15% during the festive season, which is what we expect this festive period to see,” he added.

“A look at the macro picture shows Adex in India with an expected growth rate of 20% in 2021 vs 2020,” noted Mansi Datta, Chief Client Officer & Head – North & East, Wavemaker India, adding “What boosts this growth is a buoyant festive season. Advertisers do have their fingers crossed and there’s a sense of cautious optimism.”

Datta further said that this festive season is seeing a demand for consumer durables, autos getting active and this trend will continue and be even more aggressive for the auto category. “There is a buoyancy around autos with a rise in demand for personal mobility solutions and also a lot of launches expected in H2. The cluster of FMCG, BFSI, Consumer durables, education, accounting for 40% share of the spends and expected to grow at 16% in 2021 vis-a-vis 2020. Auto, E-commerce, Tech/ Telco, real estate accounting for the next big chunk of approximately 37% will see growth of 30%,” she pointed out.

Festive has a heavy sports calendar with IPL and ICC T20 WC happening back-to-back, the sports genre is likely to capture almost a quarter of the viewership share. But GEC genre need not despair as there are many fish in the pond who are also lapping up the strong impact properties lined up in festivals like ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’, ‘KBC’, ‘Bigg Boss’, ‘Big Picture’, etc. The inventory demand levels are higher than 2019 levels and GEC’s are also poised to benefit from the same.

“All in all, the GECs will also see their fair share gain this festive season,” Datta concluded.